What Customer Service??? very unhappy customer

Ok guys i think i should now air my Plusnet problems over the forum, first of all some info on me and account, old, bald, and now quite angry lol, been with force9/plusnet since day one, and to be honest was reasonbly happy up until september this year, we had an email from plusnet saying "hey good news your exchange is being updated, expect higher speeds and less problems" I wish i never had that email. about a month to six weeks after that the problems started, Dropped connections, Low Speeds, Losing Phone connection (my phone is with PN as well), and lately the odd spark from the wiring at the back of my master socket (which was just renewed). I havent got anywhere with PN so today i went to my local trading standards office and they told me to put it in writing, so I am going to show you all the letter i have sent, you can call me victor meldrew or what ever you want after reading it Dear Customer Service DirectorI have been with force9/Plusnet for over 10 years now with phone and internet and until recently have been very happy with the service and have frequently recommended the ISP to others, but I have to complain about the service or lack of I am currently receiving. We have a fault with our broadband which is causing drop outs and low line speeds, this has only really occurred recently since about late September, the fault has been reported and various checks have been undertaken, Bt were contacted and arranged to call on a certain day, this was set up by a [removed] and I explained that I had just come out of hospital so could the arranged date be 2/11/2010 on a pm slot, he confirmed this and we awaited the engineer. Sunday 31/10/2010 at 7.45am we had a call from an engineer waiting to gain access to our premises to look at fault, needles to say I was not well enough to attend the computer to help him in any way, and we were expecting him on the following Tuesday, I contacted Plusnet and told a [removed] of the situation, and to be honest I did lose my temper slightly at Daniel when he told me that the next available slot was the 9/11/2010 and it was Plusnet's fault as they forgot to tell the engineer of the time slot, but I did apologise and left it at that, later that day after I had time to think about the situation, I contacted the sales team as I had really had enough and wanted to move from Plusnet, the sales advisor was apologetic and I ended up with 3months free broadband, it was a little sweetener but if I had known then that this problem was still going on 3 months later then I would have cancelled and moved to another ISP, ok back to the problem in hand, It was 9/11/2010 I waited in all day for engineer till 6.45pm and no engineer turned up, I contacted Plusnet again and left a note on the help assistant update, the next day 10/11/2010 I spoke with [removed], he contacted BT and was told fault was fixed at exchange, I was not informed of this? The fault was still there low line speed and still dropping out, another appointment was set for the 16/11/2010, on the 16th the engineer arrived I explained the faults and he continued to check everything even my equipment, after a good few hours he returned to our house after climbing all the poles outside, his exact words were you have been capped by your ISP, your neighbour is getting 1.2mb and at the pole it’s 1.6mb, now my living situation is this, I live 5 miles from nearest exchange (Pontypridd) and I live up on top of a mountain, I live in a semidetached old house and the nearest other dwellings are about 800metres away, and 800metres is where the main BT pole is which supplies 4 farms/houses in the area, mine being one of them along with my attached neighbour, the Engineer asked if me neighbour had broadband, I replied I did not know as we do not speak much, the engineer left to check, he came back and said the were with Sky and they were getting 700mb, but capable of 1.2mb, so I was fuming at this stage, we have a house next door which has a faster connection, and 2 farms over 800metres away getting 1.6mb and little old me getting 220-380 max.Then on 17th November at 3.51pm a [removed] rang me and said he had done a test on our line and there was a fault, but it was a phone fault, and he needed to arrange another engineer to call, but he confirmed that another test was done and it passed ok, so he passed fault onto ADSL team. Another appointment was made with BT for the 6/12/2010, again I waited in all day for engineer, he did not turn up (I have CCTV evidence of this), I contacted Plusnet on the evening of the 6th and spoke to Nick, who did advise me that maybe they had done some checks/repairs in the exchange, but to give it a few day days for their reports, I left it till today 8th December 2010 to contact Plusnet, and I spoke to [removed] who apologised and then proceeded to check BT notes, and again BT state that they have attended my home and done checks, again they did not.I was contacted by a [removed] from Plusnet who again apologised and arranged another engineers appointment for the 13/12/2010 at 13.00 t0 18.00hrs also at this time another fault developed, every time the telephone rang the internet would disconnect, so I informed Plusnet of this. BT did not arrive on the date that was agreed but they did contact me by phone and an engineer was working in the exchange on the fault, and he explained what he thought was wrong and was going to remove the line speed cap. On the 14/12/2010 I was contacted by a [removed] of Plusnet to say that although the speed restriction had been lifted the line was still not stable so he was going to look into it further, [removed] contacted me on the 16th and he explained he was personally going to monitor this fault and would do his best to solve this problem, he did advise that my service be reduced as the fault could be caused by trying to put too much speed down the line, and we would have to be offline for about 5 days for this to happen, I agreed to this, so the date of the 2nd January 2011 was set for this to happen. Later that evening 16/12/2010 we had really bad snow, the internet was turned off all evening, I was sat at the PC on the following morning and I could hear a strange noise coming form the telephone socket, so I disconnected the internet and telephone but the noise was still there (reminded me of a faulty spark plug lead on a car), I undone the two screws holding the front panel on the BT socket and there I could see a small blue spark about 3-4mm jumping from the black wire to the blue wire (these were spare wires), I investigated further knowing that Bt lines carry about 9volts max, boy was I wrong, it gave me one hell of a kick, that was more like 240v not 9v. I immediately contacted Plusnet support, and I spoke to a [removed], I informed him of the problem and he contacted his line supervisor and then told me it was not plusnet's problem as it was internal and told me to call an independent engineer or electrician I did not want to argue about it as I knew this was not an internal problem, but I did contact a local ex Bt engineer who said he could not get to me, but would try and help over the phone (mobile), he said the most likely problem is the line coming to our property being worn/weak and the weight of the snow on the line could be causing it to touch another electrical cable hence the large spark. And to be honest [removed] did mention that maybe the line to our property was failing. On Christmas eve I was contacted by [removed] who discussed the problem with me and arranged for this problem to be monitored, Plusnet then contacted me on the 28th Dec 2010 and I spoke to a [removed] who was concerned that an engineer had not been called to rectify this problem, I explained that an engineer tried to get to us but the snow was so bad he could not, so he again raised the fault and arranged for an engineer to call ASAP, Saturday the 1st January 2011, [removed] from Plusnet contacted me to arrange another engineer visit on the Monday 3rd January 2011 at the hours of 8.00am to 13.00 pm, Monday the 3rd came and went no engineer turned up or contacted me. This has happened at least three times now, I am really getting fed up with Bt and Plusnet, they have both agreed there is a problem, so why can it not be fixed??, before September of 2010 we had a reasonably stable line, although the speeds were not great it was pretty stable, I do accept that we live a long way from the exchange but nothing has altered so why now the problems?? I have had enough of BT and Plusnet and I have this morning been to my local trading standards office who have advised me to put it down in writing to Plusnet and also to Ofcom, I have done this and I will wait for your reply. To me the service is not good enough and as trading standards officer has pointed out I am paying good money for something I am not getting, it’s not very funny when my son is doing his “A” level assignments and it takes him nearly 2-3 minutes to move between pages online and sudden internet disconnections. Is there anything you can do to help this matter? If it cannot be resolved then I have no other alternative than to seek further and even legal advice on the matter while I move to a different ISP, and the way Plusnet are handling this I really think they would Favour me to do that.

I am sorry for the rant, but i am really fed up now and its time to move on, I am really sorry i did not act on my last decision and request a Mac code and move on at that time[Moderator's note by Dick(Strat): CSA name removed as per the forum rules.]

Re: What Customer Service??? very unhappy customer

Hi BM,At the risk of being "moderated" (I know you're out there, Strat... ), I agree totally. I've been with PN a while, and have even (God forgive me !) recommended them, but something's broken at PN.I've had no usable b/band for over a month and have no visibility of any progress, let alone a potential fixed-by date. So currently I'm paying monthly for nothing.And if it's any consolation, I'm bald too !! ... maybe comes from being a PN customer and pulling one's hair out ?!

Re: What Customer Service??? very unhappy customer

Thanks Witty, yeah i long locks of hair just over 10 years ago (joke) and i am expecting this to be moderated, but one thing i will add the SPARKING is still there and it is up around 240volt, and still they do nothing about it!!! i would have thought this would have been a major concern not a minor one, and to add to my problems, and engineer was booked for yeaterday, but only BT overtime engineers and linesmen work on bank holidays, so why say the appointment was booked??. no wonder i got no hair lol

Re: What Customer Service??? very unhappy customer

Hi baldmechanic,I'm sorry to hear you've had so much trouble in getting your fault rectified. Having read through your letter I can see why you have come to this point. As far as the letter goes I think I'll leave that to the complaints team to deal with as you've already sent it.As far as your fault goes, I have pointed out your post and your account to one of our faults managers and he is now getting someone to take ownership of it. I sincerely hope for some resolution to this for you soon.Jojo

Re: What Customer Service??? very unhappy customer

sorry to hear about your new year hangover Barry, will send up some hair of the dog welsh whisky for u to get your taste buds into while your eayes are recovering, and on a more serious note: BT are going to contact me on my mobile to sort out this Arcing wire syndrome.happy days well some are anyway but me thinks me still have to depart from PN, they are not the same outfit anymore

Re: What Customer Service??? very unhappy customer

Hmmmmm i just read this post and thought i could have written it . Im in Pontypridd too mate , top of Cilfynydd and i've been with plusnet since early November and im STILL on the lowest ip profile and lowest speed ( approx 15kb/p sec download ....wooooooot ! ) This i can admit i had a fault with my line until December 27th , the phone ringing would knock off the broadband connection , this caused me to have a speed of 280kbps given to my line after the 10 day training period had finished . BT engineer came on the 27th of December checked line , totally new master socket fitted , new filter , played around at exchange and voila problem solved and no more not answering the phone when online lol....I WISH !!!!The dynamic line management didn't seem to know i had been online constantly for over 3 and a half days and iv'e actually dropped from a whopping download speed of 28kbps to 15kbps . So i rang the tech line spoke to someone who shall remain nameless and got the " Can you plug it in the master socket " routine. So ...it's in the master socket now and has been for nearly a day ...So my questions are ...Do i wait another 3 days before i ring back up get fobbed off by another tech ?Do i raise a ticket ?Do i do nothing and hope something happens ?Can anyone out there in PLUSNET latch onto this and give me a head up into what is happening with my speed....as iv'e explained it was 2.1 mbps before i switched to you...okey it would lose connection around 10 times a day ...i could put up with that rather then having an UNUSABLE one !Surely u can't fob me off for a year untill i leave , as you wont make hardly any money out of me as you've already given me a free month on top of my signing up offer of 3 free months Any replies much appreciated

Re: What Customer Service??? very unhappy customer

Hi mondyman,I got heavily moderated yesterday (G'morning Strat & OldJim ) for readily agreeing with someone else's thread (well, lots of people's threads, to be honest !)... but, hey, here I go again...My situation replicates yours... VERY low downstream speed, drop-outs when the phone rings, NO action from PN.My advice... log a support call... it won't get you any further (I've been waiting over a month and continue to get fobbed off with the usual default responses), but it would be the correct use of PN's support systems.You don't have to read many threads to see that your issue is occurring through-out the PN customer base. PN's tech's will be quick to say that no two problems need be the same, but... if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck........................Good luck, mondyman, but don't hold your breath !!

Re: What Customer Service??? very unhappy customer

Hi mondyman, What are your line stats now you're connected to the master socket? You can get these from the router page. @witsend, we have no (as in zero) control over your connection to the exchange, be that a dropping connection, low sync speed or otherwise. What we can control is pushing this to get it fixed. I thought I'd read in a thread elsewhere that someone was looking at your fault, is that not the case?

Re: What Customer Service??? very unhappy customer

Hi Mand,Sadly I fear that that is all that is happening in my case... it's only being looked at !! I totally and completely appreciate your 3rd party dependancy and that BT (Bloody Terrible !) are the "owners" of the infrastructure. But frankly, how much of kicking is PN prepared take on BT's behalf before you guys act on your responsibilities to your customers ?! It strikes me that PN are happy to the point the finger and shrug with a "it's not our fault" attitude, when the truth is: you pay an (to avoid moderation... ) extremely large sum of money to BT. Why is this not leveraged to the advantage of your customers ? (Oh, hang on, I've asked a question there... the Moderators will be wanting me to start a different thread and accuse me of thread hi-jacking... )If you really can push "to get it fixed", then lets see it happening... please !?!?!?

Re: What Customer Service??? very unhappy customer

Hi Witsend, In order for us to make sure we can have a consistency in our support I would suggest it would be better if we kept all our responses to your thread here where you will find my latest response. That doesn't, of course, stop you from contributing to other threads but any questions or answers about your current issue would be better off in the same thread.Jojo

Re: What Customer Service??? very unhappy customer

In order for us to make sure we can have a consistency in our support...

Hi JoJo,Well, to be fair, in reading the forum I don't think there's any disputing PN Support's consistency... Call me "old school" (many do), but I'm a firm beliver in, where a support provider has a support system and I have a support query, then following support processes is probably how the support service wants me to respond... although I'm fast learning otherwise with PN. But, as you say, it shouldn't stop me agreeing with what I have found to be a woefully large and disturbingly consistent segment of seriously... (Uh'oh... I feel a moderation coming on... ) disappointed customers, that PN seem content to continue to service via a forum with more alacrity than they put into servicing issues logged in what other companies determine to be the "correct processes." (Just how much are you spending on renewals for maintaining your internal customer support system... )"My thread" was created by a Moderator (and a very nice chap he is too... ) operating (with all good intentions) to gain prompt response to my month-old logged fault call. Truth is, if the support operation was operating as it should, I'd venture to suggest that this forum would see a lot less traffic... and probably go someway to stop people getting the impression that a). PN doesn't care and/or b). that PN's going slowly down the pan. So... I would suggest it would be better if we kept all our responses in my support call...witsend